Nato

Did the White House post on TikTok a real video showing USA men's hockey player Brady Tkachuk insulting Canada, calling them "maple syrup eating f***s"? No, that's not true: The clip of Tkachuk bad-mouthing Canada after the USA men's team won the gold medal in the Olympics is AI-generated audio. Tkachuk plays for the Ottawa Senators NHL team and said…

Is there a federal "Born In America" act that would prevent naturalized citizens from elected office being promoted by numerous luminaries including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. John Kennedy, Rep. Jim Jordan, FBI Director Kash Patel, and movie star Denzel Washington? No, that's not true: Nearly identical versions of a dramatic story about the purported bill, changed only to…

Did Kash Patel, Sen. John Kennedy, Pete Buttigieg, Vince Gill and others demand that former President Barack Obama return millions he earned through ownership related to "Obamacare"? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories that swap-in those and other names are part of an international network of websites and Facebook pages that publish fake news stories about famous people to…

Does a viral clip show the real Erika Kirk dancing next to a highway sign renaming a road after her late husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk? No, that's not true: The video is a product of generative AI. It featured shape-shifting hands, pants that blended in and separated from a boot within seconds and a fictitious name for the agency…

Was President Trump originally mentioned in the claim that 4,725 wire transfers totalling $1.1 billion were made to Jeffrey Epstein using Russian banks? No, that's not true: This appears to be based on a mangled version of a statement made by Senator Ron Wyden about various transfers flowing in and out of Epstein's account. The Congressional Record shows that when…

Does a viral video show real reactions of the people who watched Bad Bunny's 2026 Super Bowl halftime show in the stadium? No, that's not true: The clip was marked as containing AI generated media. The video showed characteristic, AI-associated glitches such as people with three arms and two hands. The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on…

Did U.S. President Donald Trump threaten a 250% tariff on Norwegian salmon because "Norway is about to win the most golds" at the Winter Olympics? No, that's not true: The viral image of his supposed Truth Social post is not real. Lead Stories searched his account and news reports, but found no confirmation that he wrote what some on social…

Is a photo that shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer smiling and dining with Jeffrey Epstein legitimate? No, that's not true: The image was created by an artificial intelligence tool, according to several AI-generated content detectors. Google's Gemini detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image indicating that all or part of it was created or edited with Google AI.…

Did U.S. Senator Ted Cruz say, "Let's stop attacking pedophiles" at a congressional hearing? Yes, he did, but his spokesperson described that as a gaffe, "a verbal slip", and clarified that the senator opposed such crimes. The overall context of Cruz's remarks did not contradict his press office's clarification. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X…

Was Alex Pretti fired over complaints of inappropriate conduct with patients three months before federal agents fatally shot him on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The claim was started by a spam factory based in Vietnam that uses artificial tools to publish fake articles promoted by Facebook pages also managed from Vietnam. The article named the wrong hospital…